Image and Likeness

[Christos Anesti]

There is a good discussion on the issue of the image and likeness of God in the thread here. It might have been sidetracking the intent of the thread a little though so I started a new one to discuss the issue. What does the "image of God" and "likeness" mean. Are all men created in the image of God or just Adam and Eve who subsequently lost the image all together?

I wanted to post an excerpt from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's book "The Orthodox Church".
http://books.google.com/books?id=f7... and likeness of god, Orthodox Church&f=false
Image and likeness. According to most of the Greek Fathers the terms image and likeness do not mean exactly the same thing. “The expression according to the image,’ wrote John of Damascus, ‘ indicates rationality and freedom, while the expression according to the likeness indicates assimilation to God through virtue.’ The image, or to use the Greek term the icon, of God signifies our human free will, our reason, our sense of moral responsibility- everything , in short, which marks us out from the animal creation and makes each of us a person. But the image means more than that. It means that we are God’s offspring (Acts xvii,28), His kin; it means that between us and Him there is a point of contact and similarity. The gulf between creature and Creator is not impassable, for because we are in God’s image we can know God and have communion with Him. And if we make proper use of this faculty for communion with God, then we will become ‘like’ God, we will acquire the divine likeness; in the words of John Damascene, we will be ‘assimilated to God through virtue’. To acquire the likeness is to be deified, it is to become a ‘second god’, a ‘god by grace’. ‘ I said you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High’ (Psalm lxxxi, 6)
The image denotes the powers with which each one of us is endowed by God from the first moment of our existence; the likeness is not endowment which we posses from the start, but a goal at which we must aim, something which we can only acquire by degrees. However sinful we may be, we never lose the image; but the likeness depends upon our moral choice, upon our ‘virtue’ , and so it is destroyed by sin.

Humans at their first creation were therefore perfect, not so much in actual as in potential sense. Endowed with the image from the start, they were called to acquire the likeness by their own efforts (assisted of course by the grace of God). Adam began in a state of innocence and simplicity. ‘He was a child, not yet having his understanding perfected,’ wrote Irenaues. ‘It was necessary that he should grow and so come to his perfection.’ God set Adam on the right path, but Adam had in front of him a long road to traverse in order to reach his final goal.

Continued.....

 

[Christos Anesti]

This picture of Adam before the fall is somewhat different from that presented by Augustine and generally accepted in the west since his time. According to Augustine, humans in Paradise were endowed from the start with all possible wisdom and knowledge: theirs was a realized, and in no sense potential, perfection. The dynamic conception of Irenaus clearly fits more easily with modern theories of evolution than does that more static conception of Augustine; but both were speaking as theologians, not as scientists, so that in neither case do their views stand or fall with any particular scientific hypothesis.

The west has often associated the image of God with the human soul or intellect. While many Orthodox have done the same, others would say that since the human person is a single unified whole, the image of God embraces the entire person, body and well as soul. ‘When God is said to have made humanity according to His image,’ wrote Michael Choniates (died c.1222), ‘ the word humanity means neither the soul by itself nor the body by itself, but the two together.’ The fact that humans have a body, so Gregory Palamas argued, makes them not lower but higher than the angels. True, angels are ‘pure’ spirit, whereas human nature is ‘mixed’- material as well as intellectual; but this means that our human nature is more complete than the angelic and endowed with richer potentialities. The human person is a microcosm, a bridge and point of meeting for the whole God’s creation.

Orthodox religious thought lays the utmost emphasis on the image of God in the human person. Each us is a ‘living theology’, and because we are God’s icon, we can find God by looking within our own heart, by ‘returning within ourselves’: ‘The kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke xvii,21). “Know yourselves,’ said St Antony of Egypt. ‘…He who knows himself, knows God.’ ‘If you are pure,’ wrote St Isaac the Syrian (late seventh century), ‘heaven is within you; within yourself you will see the angels and the Lord of the angels.’ And of St Pachomius it is recorded: ‘In the purity of his heart he saw the invisible God as in a mirror.’

Because she or he is an icon of God, each member of the human race, even the most sinful, is infinitely precious in God’s sight. “When you see your brother or sister’ said Clement of Alexandria, ‘you see God.’ And Evagrius taught: ‘After God, we must count everyone as God Himself.’ This respect for every human being is visibly expressed in Orthodox worship, when the priest censes not only the icons but the members of the congregation, saluting the image of god in each person. ‘The best icon of God is the human person.”

 

[laconicstudent]

Humans at their first creation were therefore perfect, not so much in actual as in potential sense.

A deacon once told me (and, well, 3 other people) that through time and Theosis we shall become more glorified and perfect then Adam and Eve were before the Fall, and there was no limit to how near we can eternally be united closer to God.

 

[1611AV]

Jesus is the image of God. We were made in his image after his likeness.

Here this should help put things in perspective.

Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat [a son] in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

 

[Christos Anesti]

I wanted to repost this from the other thread. I really like the quote from St Gregory of Nyssa in which he points out that all of humanity is of one nature. All human persons are consubstanial. We share one essence with one another just as the three Persons of the Trinity share one essence:

Not just the person Adam but human nature or man in general was created in the image of God:

For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him
-Wisdom of Solomon 2:23
　
It is the whole of human nature, extending from the beining to the end [of history], that constitutes the one image of Him who is.
-Gregory of Nyssa On the Creation of Man, 16 (PG 44,183)

To say that there are ‘many human beings’ is a common abuse of language. Granted there is a plurality of those who share in the same human nature… but in all of them, humanity is one.
-Gregory of Nyssa That there are not three Gods (PG 45,117)

Humanity was free from the beginning. For God is freedom and humanity was made in the image of God.
-Irenaeus of Lyon Against Heresies IV,37,4 (PG 45,24)

Image and Likeness are not the same thing:

“Clement of Alexandria was the first to inquire into the origin of the distinction. It is neither Platonic, no matter what Clement believed, nor Stoic, nor Philonian. It is based on the commentary of Genesis (1:26-27). The distinction in Hebrew between the two expression be selem and ke demut ought not to be exaggerated; it is a matter of ‘resembling image’ (in our image, after our likeness). The Septuagint, however made these into a coordinate expression, ‘in our image and likeness’. The words eikon and homoiosis were introduced here by the translator. At that time, under the influence of Plato and his disciples, eikon could mean participation in a sensible mode whereas homoiosis referred to the perfect spiritual resemblance toward which man must strive.

…Ireneaues made systematic use of this distinction. For him the couplet image-likeness corresponded to the Pauline couplet fleshly man-spiritual man; it was therefore the Holy Spirit who for him established the ‘the likeness’ to God. Origen followed by one strand of the Eastern tradition, utilized the dynamic character of image. The image is but incipient deification: its goal is to become as like God as possible. This ascension from ‘image to likeness’ will be completed in the glory of the risen body (Cf Jn 3:2) and in conformity with Christ’s prayer (Jn 17:21, in unity.
According to Origen’s interpretation, ‘man received the dignity of God’s image at his first creation’- on this connection others speak of baptism - but he must acquire the perfection of this likeness ‘for himself by his own diligence in the imitation of God’. The image is like a seed: ‘the soul conceives by this seed of the Word and the conceived Word is formed in it’ in conformity with the virtues of Christ."
-Tomas Spidlik The Spirituality of the Christian East.

Regarding the phrase “loss of the image”:

“On the other hand, a series of texts mention the ‘loss’ of the image through sin: ‘a hardened heart… no longer receives the imprint of the divine image’. On the other hand, the image is always present, but in a manner which is hard to define with precision. The image has only been obscured. Once evil is removed, qualities of the image appear on their own, veiled only by ‘some ugly mask’. According to Origen’s well known idea, our sins impose on us images of the terrestrial (the devil), of beasts ….of Caesar… The coexistence of two images causes the sinner to be inwardly divided. Catharsis will allow him to recover his original purity…

And so there was a fluctuation between the ‘lost image’ and the likeness that was ‘dimmed’ or ‘covered over’ (now and then, the two occur next to one another in the same text). These variations on the level of expression did not preclude coherent thought on the deeper plans of spiritual meaning. Created in the divine life man retains a nostalgia for it when he is separated from it through sin."

-Tomas Spikdlik The Spirituality of the Christian East

 

[Christos Anesti]

Jesus is the image of God. We were made in his likeness after his image.

I think that can be a valid distinction. "in the likeness" vs "the likeness". Wisdom of Solomon actually says we are the image however. I think some of the Fathers point out a distinction between the too though.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

John of Damascus's theorizing is heavily informed by his Hellenistic worldview and the prevalent philosophies therein (whether Platonism, Aristotelianism, or Stoicism). These all looked at the human person as distinct due to rational agency.

I believe that the biblical and trinitarian worldview holds that humans are in the image and likeness of God in a much more basic but far more profound sense: human beings are not merely individuals of the species (as a dog might be), but persons in community. We are most truly bearers of the image of God when we live in love with others, an image not of the rational Unmoved Mover of Plato, nor the Prime Mover of Aristotle, nor the One of Plotinus, but of the ever-loving, self-giving community of love we worship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

[1611AV]

We can find clues as to what he means by the likeness. Ezekiel 1:5 Also out of the midst thereof [came] the likeness of four living creatures. And this [was] their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
Of course we no that they did not look exactly as a man.

 

[Christos Anesti]

Ok last quote from the book I promise :

Grace and free will. As we have seen, the fact that the human person is in God’s image means among other things that we posses free will. God wanted sons and daughter, not slaves. The Orthodox Church rejects any doctrine of grace which might seem to infringe on upon human freedom. To describe the relation between the grace of God and human freedom, Orthodoxy uses the term co-operation or synergy (synergeia); in Paul’s words: ‘We are fellow workers (synergoi) with God’ (1 Cor iii, 9). If we are to achieve our full fellowship with God, we cannot do so without God’s help, yet we must also play our own part: we humans as well as God must make our contribution to the common work, although what God does is of immeasurable greater importance than what we do. ‘The incorporation of humans into Christ and our union with God require the co-operation of two unequal, but equally necessary forces: divine grace and human will’. The supreme example of synergy is the Mother of God.

The west since the time of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy, has discussed this question of grace and free will in somewhat different terms; and many brought up in the Augustinian tradition- particularly Calvinists- have viewed the Orthodox idea of ’synergy’ with some suspicion. Does it not ascribe too much to human free will, and to little to God? Yet in reality the Orthodox teaching is very straightforward. ’Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in (Rev iii,20). God knocks, but waits for us to open the door - He does not break it down. The grace of God invites all but compels none. In the words of John Chrysostem,’God never draws anyone to Himself by force and violence. He wishes all to be saved, but forces no one.” ‘It is for God to grant His grace,’ said St Cyril of Jerusalem (died 386); ‘your task is to accept that grace and guard it.’ But it must not be imagined that because a person accepts and guards God’s grace, he thereby earns ‘merit’. God’s gifts are always free gifts, and we humans can can never have any claims upon our Maker. But while we can not ‘merit’ salvation, we must certainly work for it, since ‘faith without works is dead’ (James ii 17)
…..
The image of God is distorted by sin, but never destroyed; in the words of a hymn sung by Orthodox at the Funeral Service; ‘ I am the image of Your inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin.’ And because we still retain this image of God, we still retain free will, although sin restricts its scope. Even after the fall, God ‘takes not away from humans the power to will- to will to obey or not to obey Him’. Faithful to the idea of synergy, Orthodoxy repudiates any interpretation of the fall which allows no room for human freedom.

Most Orthodox theologians reject the idea of ‘original guilt’, put forward by Augustine and still accepted (albeit in a mitigated form) by the Roman Catholic Church. Humans (Orthodox usually teach) automatically inherit Adam’s corruption and mortality, but n ot his guilt: they are guilty in so far as by thei own free choice the imitate Adam. Many western Christians used to that whatever a person does in a fallen and unredeemed state, since it is tainted by original guilt, cannot possibly be pleasing to God: ‘works done before justification,’ says the thirteenth of the throaty nine articles of the Church of England, ‘…are not pleasant to God.. But have the nature of sin.” Orthodox would hesitate to say this. And Orthodox have never held (as Augustine and many others in the West have done) that unbaptized babies, because tainted with original guilt, are consigned by the just God to everlasting flames of hell. The Orthodox picture of fallen humanity is far less somber the Augustinian or Calvinist view.

 

[Christos Anesti]

believe that the biblical and trinitarian worldview holds that humans are in the image and likeness of God in a much more basic but far more profound sense: human beings are not merely individuals of the species (as a dog might be), but persons in community. We are most truly bearers of the image of God when we live in love with others, an image not of the rational Unmoved Mover of Plato, nor the Prime Mover of Aristotle, nor the One of Plotinus, but of the ever-loving, self-giving community of love we worship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I have to agree with that. What constitutes the image of God in man embraces many things though imo. The fact that one father of the Church might stress one element and another a different one doesn't necessarily mean they are rejecting the other explanations.

John of Damascus's theorizing is heavily informed by his Hellenistic worldview and the prevalent philosophies therein (whether Platonism, Aristotelianism, or Stoicism). These all looked at the human person as distinct due to rational agency.

I would have to disagree. St John of Damascus theologized not through philosophical inquiry or human speculation but through the Holy Spirit. The connection of the image to man being a rational being has a long history in Patristic thought. It wasn't something he cooked up. One of the meanings of the term "logos" is "reason"!

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

Couldn't the image of God in Adam been distorted and that distorted image passed on to his descendents? The parallelism would still be there without implying that the image had been all together revoked or removed. If it was all together revoked Adam wouldn't just be a fallen man he would no longer be a man at all - a man be defintion is an image of God.

Indeed that is what has happened . . . but our thinking of distortion, as in a carnival mirror, is not the same as the biblical picture of sin. It is like the werewolf . . . human and then monster . . . and the monster does not look anything like the creator, and only in basics looks like the man it was (arms and a mouth and eyes etc), and cannot legitimately be said to represent the creator at all.

If it was all together revoked Adam wouldn't just be a fallen man he would no longer be a man at all - a man be defintion is an image of God

That is where my leanings on image and likeness are not found in the vision of man, or his abilities, but in what he was told to do as God's representative.

Notice Jesus' statements about the coin of ceasar . . . whose image is on the coin? A mans . . . but he dichotomizes between that image and Gods in render unto ceasar that which belongs to ceasar. His point is that the image of man is not the image of God . . . and whatever man being in the image of God means, it is not in what we "see," but in something else.

Some say the ability of man to think and reason? Well the angels have as much and they are not in the image of God . . . feel and relate? Same thing, angels have these as well. Man being a triune being (which I believe, but a strong case can also be made for the soul/spirit being synonymous)? Perhaps . . . but is that in the Genesis text? Maybe a glimmer in the plural pronoun of "us" . . . but that is a really hard case to make.

What IS in the text? The command to rule the earth . . . what is effected most by the fall? Does Adam's body become distorted? no . . . does his triune nature become fractured? no . . . what IS effected by the fall is the CURSE on mans abilities over the created order and man's relationship to God.

So that is where I stand.